Phrase guide

you are what you eat

proverb · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

No pronunciation record was provided for this word.

1

proverb

Meaning 1

Personal health and wellbeing is determined by one's eating habits, in both positive and negative ways.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Semi-Calque of German Der Mensch ist, was er ißt (literally “The human/man is what he eats”), coined in 1850 by Ludwig Feuerbach in a review of Jacob Moleschott’s Lehre der Nahrungsmittel. Für das Volk (Erlangen, 1850). Compare German man ist, was man isst.

Across languages

Translations

19 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Catalan: ets el que menges — proverb
  • Danish: du er hvad du spiser — proverb
  • Dutch: je bent wat je eet — proverb
  • Estonian: sa oled see, mida sööd — proverb
  • Finnish: olet mitä syöt — proverb
  • French: tu es ce que tu manges — proverb
  • French: vous êtes ce que vous mangez — proverb
  • German: man ist, was man isst — proverb
  • German: man ist, was man ißt — proverb
  • Hungarian: az vagy, amit megeszel — proverb
  • Icelandic: þú ert það sem þú borðar — proverb
  • Norwegian: du er hva du spiser — proverb
  • Polish: jesteś tym, co jesz — proverb
  • Portuguese: você é o que você come — proverb
  • Russian: ты то́, что ты е́шь (ty tó, što ty jéšʹ) — proverb
  • Spanish: de lo que se come se cría — proverb
  • Spanish: eres lo que comes — proverb
  • Swedish: man blir vad man äter — proverb
  • Ukrainian: Ви є те що ви їсте (Vy je te ščo vy jiste) — proverb